Our Family Project

Our Christmas was so much fun.  In the past I've been ready well before Christmas, with present wrapped at the end of October.  Not so for this year.  I was shopping for presents the Saturday before Christmas.  And, after going out there in the masses ... I will not do that again next year!  Traditionally, our children have stocking stuffers and presents from us.  We don't do the Santa thing.  Just haven't ever wanted to.  Also traditionally, all of our children get similar items.  Most of the time it's because they all want what each other wants.  But, sometimes it's not the case.  This year, they all got lapdesks to use for school when we do our science or history in the living room.  (Of course, they each got their assigned color as well.) Traditionally, we all get toothbrushes in our stockings.  This year I got them all battery-powered toothbrushes.  I've never seen so many children get excited over a toothbru...

It's taken me a long time to get these pictures up. But, I wanted to share the gifts I made this year for my sister and her two boys. She wanted something for them to keep there things in when they go visit my brother, so I made them each a backpack like one that we got from Jon's work. I LOVE these backpacks ... and cannot wait to make one for myself! I totally just based my pattern off of the backpacks that I use for everything! These are made out of some camping vinyl, so they'd be great for taking to the swimming pool ... all the wet stuff goes inside! I made my sister some oven mitts to go with the new casserole dish I sent her. These are the oven mitts that I've had on my "projects to do" list for quite some time. Putting the binding on following the directions proved to be a little bit difficult. Next time, I'll just bind them like I would a quilt and call it good. Another thing I cannot wait to make for myself!

Being the crazy mom that I am, I forgot to continue to take pictures on Christmas. I did get a couple of pictures of Maryanne with her new hat and scarf that my mom made for her. (Aren't they adorable!) But, I didn't get any other pictures. This is all we got. Oh well. Here's Maryanne walking around in her cute tutu outfit that my mom sent her for Christmas. At first I was thinking that I'd have to wait until spring to put it on her ... but, I'm so glad I didn't! She is adorable! And, I'm sure those short sleeves will be so refreshing for Maryanne when we move to Arizona.

This year we were really slow about getting out our Christmas decorations. In fact, we didn't even get them all out. I found the box of stockings in the garage and got them on the mantel probably a week before Christmas ... and that was pretty much it. No tree even. I didn't want to go cut one down because I could envision Maryanne pulling the branches and knocking needles to the floor and then eating them. And, our small (4') artificial tree was in our storage unit, which we really couldn't get into because the door broke. So, there we were a week before Christmas without a tree. I was hearing "Bah Humbug" from every direction. I finally decided that I didn't want to get all the stuff out to keep it up for two weeks and then take it all down again. But, I did feel like we needed something. So, I came up with this: I just simply traced all the children's hands and cut them out of construction paper ... a lot of construction paper. Then, we made orname...

These hats were white elephant gifts at Jon's recent company Christmas party. We seriously had to do some creative trading to take these home with us! The children loved them instantly!